Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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Various pieces of news from the medical ethics world

This article confirms what I said here about the difficulty of enforcing born-alive infant protections. The testimony of many nurses shows a pervasive pattern of overt discrimination against premature babies in withholding life-saving treatment based on the fact that they have survived abortions. One of these accounts also shows evidence of an underestimate of the child's age, suspiciously given as "23 weeks," which is just under what many hospitals would consider viable. Given that abortionists' assistants deliberately manipulate ultrasounds and lie about gestational age, this is significant.

The nurse from Labor and Delivery walked into our unit carrying a blanket and stating “This is a prostaglandin abortion. He has a heartbeat so we brought him over.” The baby was placed under a radiant warmer and I was told the rest of the facts. The gestational age of the baby was given to be 23 weeks by ultrasound. The mother had cancer and had received chemotherapy treatments before discovering that she was pregnant. The parents had been told that their baby would be horribly deformed because of the chemotherapy.

I looked at the baby boy lying before me, and saw that from all appearances he was perfect. He had a good strong heartbeat. I could tell this without using a stethoscope because I could see his chest moving in sync with his heart rate. With a stethoscope I heard a heart pumping strongly. I look at his size and his skin — he definitely looked more mature than 23 weeks. He was weighed and I discovered that he was 900 grams, almost two pounds. This was almost twice the weight of some babies we have been able to save. A doctor was summoned. When she arrived the baby started moving his tiny arms and legs flailing. He started trying to gasp, but was unable to get air into his lungs. His whole body shuddered with his efforts to breathe. We were joined by a neonatalist and I pleaded with both doctors saying, “The baby is viable — look at his size, look at his skin — he looks much older than 23 weeks.”

It was a horrible moment as each of us wrestled with our own ethical standards. I argued that we should make an attempt to resuscitate him, to get him breathing. The resident doctor told me, “This is an abortion. We have no right to interfere.” The specialist, who had the responsibility for the decision, was wringing his hands and quietly saying, “This is so hard. Oh, God, it’s so hard when it’s this close.” In the end, I lost. We were not going to try to resuscitate this baby. So, I did the only thing I could do. Dipping my index finger into sterile water and placing it on his head, I baptized the child.

Note that the (female) resident in this case expressly stated that they "had no right to interfere" because "this is an abortion." No, lady, this isn't an abortion. This is a baby. The abortion is over. The story doesn't say in what year it occurred.

What's particularly disturbing about this is that even a good law like Florida's proposed born-alive protection act that requires the baby to be taken to a hospital from an abortion clinic could run into this problem: Doctors who believe that it's acceptable to refuse assistance to the child precisely because it is unwanted and was born after an attempted abortion.

This is only going to be stopped when this type of discrimination is combated at least passionately and with as draconian measures as all the bajillion types of discrimination that our country already demonizes and outlaws at every conceivable level of jurisdiction and that the various levels of government make darned good and sure to prosecute or sue over. (These don't involve leaving babies to gasp out their last breaths without assistance, I might add.) Suppose, for example, that all hospitals had policies and training telling their neonatologists, residents, nurses--everyone involved--that "this is an abortion" must be irrelevant to the decision as to whether to give a baby breathing assistance. Suppose that there were penalties for such discrimination. Hospitals might also encourage nurse whistle blowing (and the evidence of the accounts we have indicates that there might well be nurse whistle blowing) of suspected cases of discrimination against babies who survive abortion.

And here's a creative idea: Carefully worded state legislation could support doctors in following such non-discrimination policy. For example, state legislation could craft an exception to the presumption of parental rights in treatment decisions and encourage doctors to render aid. The legislation could say something to the effect that a doctor who treats a newborn child against his parent's or parents' wishes in pursuit of a hospital policy of non-discrimination protecting babies who are unwanted and/or who survive an abortion shall be free from civil suit for rendering aid to the child

Could such regulations be circumvented? Of course. Deciding on what measures to take in treating a premature newborn is always a judgement call. But it sounds to me as though hospitals are not making any attempt at all to root out the division of preemies into wanted first-class citizens and unwanted second-class citizens. Direct legal and moral education is missing. Someone should have been able to speak up to that resident and to the agonized neonatologist and say, "You both know that it is against the policy of _____ hospital for you to take into account the fact that this child survived an abortion in a decision to deny treatment. You must give this child treatment if you would give it to a wanted newborn." Doctors should also be informed of the possibility that those (even in the same hospital) who performed the abortion may have underestimated gestational age and that gestational age needs to be reevaluated at birth.

I'm not holding my breath for any of this to take place, but this is what is needed.

Second item: Wesley J. Smith has discovered that, surprise, surprise, the decision as to whether a patient is a good candidate for organ donation, and the discussion of organ donation with the patient's family, is not kept hermetically separated from decisions about the patient's care. No, indeed. This doesn't come as a surprise to me, because I, like many others, have heard anecdotes about families with whom medical personnel have definitely been discussing organ donation prior to the family's having made a decision about whether to withdraw life-sustaining care such as a ventilator.

What Smith is noting, however, is that the Organ Procurement Organization Committee, which is the committee in charge of policies regarding organ donation, hasexplicitly rejected a proposal that it clarify its policies to make clear that there should be a firewall between decisions about care and evaluation of potential donors and discussion of donation with family. Whoever proposed the policy clarification (we don't know who it was) was under the impression, poor fellow, that such a firewall commonly exists (the proposer notes that such a firewall is recommended by the Institute of Medicine), and he was simply asking the committee to make this explicit. The committee expresses surprise that anyone should have believed this to be long-standing policy and explicitly rejects it, declaring that evaluation for suitable donor status should go on before anything is discussed with the family and that discussion with the family should be able to take place before the family has made decisions about end-of-life care for the patient! The pro-donation commentators at Smith's site are positively dismissive about any idea that this might, you know, create problems in which end-of-life care decisions are actually influenced in a pro-death direction by the desire for the patient to be an organ donor. Yet that possibility is, of course, very real.

Moreover, the OPO (the committee) says a couple of other telling things:

--They are very concerned that the patient be evaluated before discussion with the family, because the patient might have signed an organ donor card and might be in a registry as a donor. In that case, the family has no say in whether the patient is to be used as an organ donor, and the OPO wouldn't want the family to get the idea that they can veto the use of their relative as a donor! (p. 7) So the family should be presented with an evaluation first, so that they are definitely told, "Your relative can be an organ donor. Sorry, you don't get to veto this." I note that, if no organ donation card is found on the patient's person and if the person hasn't entered himself into any registry, this could be misleading in the other direction. An evaluation might proceed based on the patient's medical characteristics (the committee expressly says that this takes place), and nothing is more likely (I say) than that the family will be given the impression that they have no veto power over donation even if they do. "We've already evaluated your relative, and he is a candidate." The committee is curiously unworried about that possible confusion.

--The committee expressly wants conscious patients, such as patients suffering from Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) to be able to be evaluated as candidates for organ donation. (pp. 5-6) Yes, you read that right. These would be patients who are ventilator dependent but conscious and who might want to be used in what is called a non-heart-beating donation. Here's how it would go: The patient says, "I want you to take me off the ventilator and donate my organs." The organ procurement team doesn't need familial consent, because the patient just gave consent. So the organ procurement team comes in, the patient is taken off the vent., his heart stops beating for the extremely minimal time required (which could be as little as a minute and a half or two minutes), and his organs are taken.

If all of this doesn't give you pause, it should.

Third miscellaneous item: Wesley J. Smith makes the interesting point that the Kansas law stating the obvious biological fact that a new human life begins at conception could allow the regulation of the treatment of embryos conceived outside the womb.

He has a good point. Though it is true that, logically, an unborn child within the womb is worth no less than an unborn child outside the womb, legally, the treatment unborn child within the womb is allegedly constrained by the lawless Roe v. Wade, which was all based on a woman's alleged right to physical autonomy. A child outside the womb, therefore, even at the earliest stages of life, could potentially be protected more rigorously. We see this at the end of pregnancy, with the whole issue of born-alive infant protection acts and the prosecution of Kermit Gosnell for active post-birth infanticide. Ironically, we also have children outside of the womb at the very earliest stages, those stages where they "don't look like babies," because of IVF. They shouldn't be there, but there they are. Now, if a state could decisively outlaw using them for research (for example), that would remove one motive for manufacturing them. It would also allow the regulation of IVF. Unlike Smith, who doesn't want to ban IVF but does want to regulate it, I would love to ban it. A state like Kansas that has defined human life as beginning at conception could build on that in multiple ways to protect its youngest citizens outside of the womb. I hope they do so. They should start by banning embryo-destructive research within the state.

Comments (31)

Suppose, for example, that all hospitals had policies and training telling their neonatologists, residents, nurses--everyone involved--that "this is an abortion" must be irrelevant to the decision as to whether to give a baby breathing assistance.

Make receipt of medicare/medicaid dependent upon a hospital adopting and enforcing such a policy, or risk losing medicare/medicaid certification. For hospital systems of any significant size, it can amount to 30% or more of their revenue. Simply put, they could not operate without it. With fines and penalties to recover, the OIG would have incentive to audit and punish offenders, and hospitals/physicians would have incentive to comply. Physicians caught violating the policy would be excluded from medicare/medicaid, which would basically prevent them from getting privileges anywhere.

Titus, I'm glad to see you here. What d'you think of my suggestion for new civil rights laws and/or hospital regs banning discrimination against newborns--explicitly using the word "discrimination"--on grounds of having survived an abortion? What about the tort limitation aspect and the parental rights issues? How about whistle-blower protection for nurses? Do you think any of this would be an improvement over BAIPA attempts to date? Would anyone go for it?

As far as that's concerned, I don't understand even from a Catholic theological perspective. Water is the proper medium for baptism. I was under the impression that in Catholic theology there is not a prescription that it must be X quantity of water. I doubt that anybody was going to let her pour more over the baby's head.

Baptism first: the matter of baptism is water, while its form is the pronouncement of the words "I baptize" together with a Trinitarian formula (e.g., "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"). There is no minimum quantity of water, although it is necessary that the imposition of the water on the candidate and the pronouncement of the words be more or less simultaneous. Baptism may be by immersion, or by infusion (pouring), or by aspiration. The water should be imposed upon the head, although it is possible (but not certain) that imposition of water on some other principal body part will suffice.

The requirement most in doubt here appears to be that the water must not only touch the candidate but that it must also "flow." This seems to mean that the water must run. It would certainly be possible (although not certain) for such water as would adhere to a person's finger to run. It may also be the case that the movement of the water over the child's head by the nurse would suffice for "flowing." Without consulting an orthodox manual on sacramental theology, which I don't have on hand at the moment, I can't say for certain whether that suffices. But "flowing" would appear to be the only possible impediment, and that far from certain as one.

The legal regimen second: I don't see any particular reason why Lydia's proposed set of laws would not function. Neither medical regulations nor discrimination law are quite my bailiwick, but I believe that similar rules already exist for other groups of persons. I don't know that "discriminate" would be the best word, but certainly the concept of adopting a policy or practice of denying care to children who survived abortions, or of denying such care in a given instance, is what one wants to proscribe. As unwholesome as I tend to find "discrimination" laws, the whole cavalcade of baggage might be just the sauce for that goose.

On the liability limitation, that wouldn't hurt, but I don't see how you could possibly sue someone for that conduct anyways. Actually, I say that, but that's not right: there are plenty of ways people who work in my (only slightly less dedicated than medical ethicists to the evil one) profession who would try to make such a claim. So what you would need would be 1) an irrebutable presumption of consent to treatment (forestalling medical battery claims); 2) a robust limitation on malpractice liability (undoubtedly justified on the basis that "you just tried to kill the kid, lady; don't coming griping to me because I saved him and he's gimpy"); and 3) extinguishing of any (already barbaric) claim in the nature of "wrongful life"---you probably have to extend that protection to the abortionists, sadly, to get them to cooperate.

On the enforcement side, the funding angle suggested by Matt is probably a good idea. What you do is adopt a law stating that no hospital that engages in the referenced discriminatory practices shall receive federal funding. Then you make it enforceable via a False Claims Act qui tam action, in which any citizen can act as a private attorney general and sue the hospital on the government's behalf (and recover fees and what amounts essentially to a bounty). Now, that's a federal cause of action. On the state level, you could create a similar mechanism, imposing a statutory fine with a private-attorney-general clause.

I think any of that is an improvement over the toothless BAIPA. Will anyone go for it? Unlikely, unless the horrors of the case out of Philly puts a fire under some energetic pro-life lawmakers and shames the opposition into going along.

I don't think the answer to bad law is more laws. We've become too accustomed to the notion that the answer to every problem is legislation. That's not the answer. The answer is morality. The answer involves the church waking up and crying out loud for the truth - in our homes, on every street corner, on radio and TV, on the internet - instead of trying to get the state to legislate it.

We need to reopen the discussion on right and wrong in this country. We need to make the professional legislators irrelevant. We could start by de-funding the federal government. (Kill the beast!)

Take the instance described above. If there were no worries about "the law", abortion rights, and etc, if all the doctors had to go on was an inner sense of right and wrong, they'd more than likely choose to save the baby. It is the overarching presence of the state that stifles free thinking and morality. And we feed that presence by trying to steer the behemoth rather than dismantle it.

The problem causing that isn't "too many laws." It's the notion that a woman has a right (read "freedom") to kill her baby and that "we don't have a right to interfere."

What they need is to be told, "Um, no, this is a baby, you have to treat it like a baby."

What are you going to say next? That if they put a pillow over its face and smothered it the answer isn't laws but "more morality." Um, yeah, in a sense. In a sense that people who smother babies should be prosecuted by the other people who have morality!

Now, I acknowledge that if the entire culture is *bound and determined* to make sure these babies wind up dead, and if everybody is complicit in it, then by definition you're not going to be able to stop it.

But everybody _didn't_ want to be complicit. The nurse, for example. But she didn't have any recourse. Now, what if she did? What if there were a policy in the hospital that she could report that incident as a case of treating that baby as a second-class citizen? Then she would have had recourse.

Hospitals themselves need policies to run. It hardly seems to be asking too much to have hospitals that say, in no uncertain terms, "There is no such thing as a right to a dead baby."

Daniel, while there are indeed too many laws, laws against MURDER are not the place to find excess. Wrong target. If there is a role for government of ANY SORT at all, then there is proper place for laws against murder. Short of men turning into angels, there is and always will be need for men to be restrained by superior force, and that superior force can ONLY be the rule of the strong over the weak or the rule of law. Those are the only options.

Further, St. Thomas (and many other teachers) state that law is for the purpose of (and for the support of) virtue. That is, while virtue cannot be found resting in obedience to good law out of mere fear, the human person can be brought to virtue by starting his course in obeying right order out of fear, and eventually interiorizing that order as his very own and loving it. The law thus is for the sake of the weak while they acquire strength in virtue. I admit that this happens much better when the laws are few, rather than vast multitudes. But those few have to include basic protection of life. And, where there has been a surfeit of bad laws, the corrective may include some laws, temporarily, which restrain new evils until people no longer need law to speak definitely about such evils.

Legislatively and judicially we have defined "murder" out of existence. Society used to use common sense to determine right and wrong, now we are taught to look to "the law". The problem is legislators and jurists - not the average doctor or citizen who would recoil at the idea of killing a live baby. The hesitation those healthcare professionals felt wasn't from pangs of conscience, it was from fear of lawsuits and misinformation about legalities.

Daniel, the abortion took place _in_ the hospital. Doctors do abortions willingly, not because they are afraid of being sued. The resident said they had no _right_ to interfere. Her confusions were ethical first and legal only secondly. Doctors are also taught extremely bad ethics in their training. Finally, better policies in the hospital could overcome those legal bits of misinformation, couldn't they?

Oh, and, by the way: Another story in that same article I linked, which I didn't happen to quote here, said that babies who survived abortions at one hospital were drowned in a bucket. I hope you aren't going to tell me that that was done because of fear of lawsuit. It takes a special kind of depravity to drown a baby in a bucket.

According to a poster in the philosophy program at my college, Philosophy majors have the highest rate of acceptance into Medical School. Wonder if that winds up tracking the modernist bioethics enthusiasts into the medical profession...

What I am getting at is the fact that the state has taken the place of the church as the arbiter of morals in this country. And what does the church do? Why, it tries to get the state to bend to its vision - thus ceding power and authority over morality to the state.

The state will soon be all-poweful, and the church will have helped it get that way. Can't you see that?

To expand: What should the church do? The church should be fighting for less government - far less government. Why won't it do that? Because it has come to believe that less government = less morality. IOW, the church doesn't trust its own influence but rather relies upon the state as the arbiter of morals in this country. It believes that "getting the state out of peoples lives" will end up in anarchy and chaos. The church doesn't trust itself with freedom. It doesn't realize that freedom from oversight by the state will be freedom for the church to redefine right and wrong in this country. It doesn't realize the danger it's in. It doesn't realize that the state is about to permanently confiscate all authority over the subject and will soon impose its view upon the church. It's right around the corner and the church blindly appeals for more power for the state.

Daniel, I can't believe you're bringing up these sorts of slogans in response to baby killing. Seriously: It's one of those libertarian basics that outlawing killing the innocent is the proper province of the state. Remember?

I know I speak in simplistic terms (what you call "slogans") but that's because I'm uneducated and have a very limited vocabulary. What I'm trying to do here (in my unrefined way) is make an argument. Leaving things to the state has never worked well for the church. Roe V Wade was an example of the state trumping all other institutions in this country - including the church. It was a power-grab that led directly to an epidemic of baby-killings. The answer, IMO, is not to trust such things to the arbitrary view of jurists, politicians, bureaucrats and legislators but rather to advocate for the weakening of the Leviathan state and the strengthening of the feeble church.

The church used to overshadow the state in this country. Now it is the other way around. Unless we reverse that, the country is doomed.

Yeah, but that's just general talking. It doesn't mean that _every_ move to pass a law is something we should tut-tut about. You have to look at whether it's a good law or not. As in, a law that would directly save babies' lives by giving good nurses a recourse when babies are being left to gasp out their last because they are unwanted. Or worse, when they are being drowned in buckets.

Why won't it do that? Because it has come to believe that less government = less morality. IOW, the church doesn't trust its own influence but rather relies upon the state as the arbiter of morals in this country.

The church used to overshadow the state in this country. Now it is the other way around. Unless we reverse that, the country is doomed.

I am not so sure you have your basic facts right. Yes, the influence of the church used to greater than now, and yes the influence of the federal government used to be much less. But state governments, that's another story.

But really I wonder your underlying point. The church always can (and has) used exhortation to persuade people to do the good. It has never had much in the way of direct power to do anything more than persuasion (except in the Papal states, I suppose). So, if the church uses its powers of persuasion, and people still kill each other, the church has no soldiers to make them stop.

Now, you could say "well, let them listen to the church or nobody, and if they won't obey the church then we just live with it." But the state's direct obligation is to preserve safety and peace, so the state cannot merely point to the church when A is killing B and say "hey, you, don't you know the church say's that's wrong?" No, the state always has used the sword to put down malefactors - as St. Paul says in Romans, the sword is wielded by the prince upon evil-doers. That means that either the state has its OWN definitions of evil that the state's agents will put down, or the state must abide by someone else's definitions - like the church. But either way, according to the Bible and universal practice (from long before the US or even before the church), the state operates by suppressing evils - immorality.

Therefore, it is unavoidable that whatever role you envision for the church to work against immorality, that role is with and along side the role of the state, not instead of it. The two can cooperate, or the state can fight the church. It is impossible that the state simply not have an agenda to suppress evil behavior.

Well, the Leviathan I refer to as "the state" is the federal government. So one thing the church can do to fight the power of "the state" is push for states' rights. Basically, anything that reduces federal power and moves government to a more local sphere is good for the church. If the church wants to nullify Roe V Wade, the avenue I'd recommend is through states' rights.

Now, currently, the big issue regarding states' rights is the marijuana debate. Several states have legalized marijuana use in some form while federal law still holds it to be illegal. While it may seem counterintuitive and may seem to violate our Christian sensibilities, it would be wise, IMO, for the pro-life lobby to support the marijuana lobby in their pursuit of states' rights.

I think we need to see the big picture here. There are 90,741 governments in this country. Of those, 90,740 are state and local governments. We have allowed immeasurable power to be concentrated in one government over and above 90,740 others. This one authority has declared abortion legal - obliterating the authority of 90,740 state and local governments - many of which had laws on the books making abortion illegal. Thus, anything that decentralizes power will also help save babies.

A) You may have noticed that I explicitly advocated state versions of the laws I mentioned in the main post. If you didn't notice, you should have. Are you okay with that, now?

B) The Federal govt. is going along with state marijuana legalization, so be happy.

C) You need to get your priorities straight. It shows a skewed sense of perspective that I put up a post about hospitals allowing babies to die who could be saved, and your major priorities are 1) fretting vaguely about too much government and 2) telling us that it's our Christian duty to support more marijuana legalization in the name of states' rights. For crying out loud, if you want to be such a big fan of states' rights, why not support North Dakota's abortion law defying Roe? Believe me, the Feds aren't going to look the other way on that one, as they do on drug laws (see #2), yet you were conspicuous by your absence in my thread encouraging states to defy Roe and arrest abortionists. When are you going to realize that the card-carrying libertarians don't have their priorities straight on various issues? Not even by their own lights. (You know, as in, the federal government is doing something a *lot worse* if it won't let states prevent the killing of the unborn, which is the use of deadly force, than if it still has anti-pot laws on the books.)

I have several websites I frequent and this website is low on my list of priorities. Sometimes I don't come around for days. When I do, I pick a thread that piques my interest, read it, and maybe post a comment. Sometimes I forget about it and don't come back for several days to even read the responses. So my not posting in one of your threads does not mean I'm not on board with that idea. (This weekend I don't have a whole lot going on, and I've been checking back frequently - sometimes that happens as well.)

I had a suspicion though, when I posted what I did about marijuana laws, that you would somehow misconstrue that to mean that my priority is pot over life. That is SO not the case though. I don't smoke pot and, if you go back and look, whenever I have posted a comment on abortion, I have been staunchly pro-life. What I've come to learn about you Lydia, is that you tend to view people here as either enemies or friends - and treat them either with respect or derision based solely on that perception. Now, because I recommend fighting for life differently than you, you treat me like an enemy and feel the need to shoot down my ideas.

I am for a stronger church, a much, much weaker federal government, less laws, and states' rights. What part of that do you disagree with?

Daniel, if you're so on-board with my ideas and so pro-life, why have you been making uncomfortable noises in _this_ thread? What, precisely, is your beef with anything I've proposed? Bearing in mind that I'd be quite happy with

a) the laws I'm proposing to protect born-alive infants being implemented at the state level and

b) the only involvement of the federal govt., at the most, being the withholding of funds from hospitals that violate the policy and let aborted infants die because they had the gall to survive an abortion.

What part of that do _you_ disagree with? It's just a waste of time to make broad, general comments about states' rights and overly active government and so forth in a thread with specific recommendations. Fish or cut bait.

For the record, Daniel, I don't regard you as an enemy. I regard you as confused. That you wouldn't recognize in advance the bizarreness of bringing up pot legalization in a thread where we're discussing born-alive infant protection (about which you are expressing some sort of undefined uneasiness having to do with "less government") is a measure of your type of confusion. Having a sense of proportion is part of developing a good and nuanced political philosophy.

Well, I am, in this case at least, guilty of not reading the full OP (so many words, so little time!)
So I may have jumped to conclusions a bit.

What I was reacting to was the call for more laws.

I have noticed, however, that your position re: states' rights is inconsistent. You are for states' rights when it comes to abortion, but against states' rights when it comes to marriage. I think we either need to be fundamentally for or against states' rights (with all their consequences).

No, I'm not "against states' rights" when it comes to marriage, because the states have to pass any constitutional amendment that passes. Large quantities of states. Which may well not happen. Favoring a constitutional amendment on some subject is not in itself an anti-states'-rights position. It simply embodies a misunderstanding to think so. But I'm not getting into the marriage discussion with you _again_. I had hoped that your position had become a bit better informed on that matter, but here you are again with the cliches.

But I'll take "I didn't read the main post" as an apology for being somewhat time-wasting with vague statements.

I would just request, please, that in the future if you have an objection to something I am proposing, you would be _specific_ in your objections, saying _specifically_ what proposal of mine you disagree with and why. It saves a lot of time. For you as well.

The video I linked to above is one that every pro-life person needs to share with the pro-abortion crowd or anyone who is on the fence. It is an undercover video where a woman who is 23.5 weeks pregnant asks various medical staff at an abortion clinic about what happens if the baby survives the abortion. This is not for the faint of heart! They describe babies being sucked out of the womb in pieces and occasionally surviving - only to be left to die on the table. They try to use clinical terms but periodically slip up and call it a "baby". It's particularly gruesome, yet they talk about it so indifferently, like in their minds it's still not a human being. They say that the "humane" thing to do is to get an injection to "stop the fetal heart" before the procedure. Even then, they say, some infants survive. They assure the woman though, that they will do nothing to resuscitate the baby born alive.

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